Hey all,

I currently run a sendmail machine and have for some time. I've been exposed to Exchange a bit more due to my job, and I'm wondering if there is a way to have sendmail behave a bit more like Exchange. Specifically, I'm interested in my clients leaving their mail on the server in a MAPI sort of way. I don't want them to have to download their emails via POP3 or IMAP. I'm also wanting a folder management system like Exchange including contacts and such. Finally, I'm hoping to install an OWA-style web mail. I know that the web mail software is out there and available, but it's useless if the clients are actually using POP3 and have no mail to manage.

Is there a document that I should look at or some other non-sendmail software that I should be running on my Linux machine to get what I'm looking for? Thanks in advance for any assistance. If you need clarification on my question, just let me know.

but imap DOES leave the mail on the server. This clearly all has nothing to do with sendmail though... sendmail might be what gets the mail in the first place, but everythign you're asking about is how to get the mail once it's on the server.

You're right, it's not sendmail. I apologize. However, IMAP (if I remember correctly) doesn't let you manipulate the storage of the emails on the server itself. I'm looking for a MAPI-like way of handling emails on the server itself. Does such a thing exist?

i know nothign about MAPI, but imap can certainly let you do things like move messages between folders etc...

Well, taking the information you gave me, I set up an Outlook client (I was previously using Evolution) and was able to connect via IMAP over SSL. I successfully viewed the items in the mailbox, but I was unable to create a folder. The error that I received, not surprisingly, said that this was a limitation of the IMAP server. Now, is it true, that the IMAP service running on my mail server is the limiting factor, or do I need to alter the way in which my mail is stored in some fashion in order to gain this functionality?

Thanks for dealing with my ignorance, and this stuff is slightly over my head.

well i use courier-imap and can do this fine. well to be honest *I* don't do it, but i'm 99.9% sure the fire does it fine via thunderbird.

Well, I did some additional research, and I got it working to an extent. I can create some folders, but not in the inbox. There seem to be a couple issues still, though:

1) The inbox still appears to be going to the /var/mail/<username> file. Therefore, no folders can be created.
2) Any folder I create actually becomes an mbox file in ~/mail instead of an actual directory with a file for each email.

Can anyone shead some light on these issues?

you probably want to look into use Maildir's instead of mbox's. this could be where your MTA, sendmail, does come back into the picture. afaik, sendmail doesn't do Maildir by default, but there is a patch. other MTA's like postfix actively prefer Maildirs. also you could hand the actual end delivery over to procmail whatever your choice of MTA is.

My installation of sendmail already used procmail for local delivery. It took me a while to figure out how to get procmail to use maildir. In the ~/.procmailrc file, you have to set the "DEFAULT=..." line to the location of the maildir, but you also have to leave a trailing slash or it attempts to create an mbox. That is now functioning.

I don't know how I resolved the issue with dovecot. It was still looking for the mail in the /var/mail/<username> mbox. I went to bed, and it was still doing this despite what I thought to be appropriate configuration changes. When I got to work today, it was behaving as I wanted. I restarted to service last night, but it didn't seem to take the change until this morning. Oh, well.

So, for anyone who reads this in the future wanting an answer, it's really quite simple. First, you modify the ~/.procmailrc file. If the file is missing, add it. Change the DEFAULT value to say "DEFAULT=~/mail/" (assuming you want the maildir in that location). Procmail is not a service, so this should take effect immediately. If you're using dovecot, then you will need to modify the /etc/dovecot.conf file. Change the default_mail_env value to say "default_mail_env=maildir:~/mail". Restart the service (or go to bed, in my case ), and then you're good to go!

Thanks for the help, acid_kewpie.

One more question comes to mind now. I've got my IMAP folders working the way I want. I'm going to be installing squirrelmail to take the place of Outlook Web Access. The only thing I have left to do to make this a very Exchange-like server is to find a way to have server-side contacts. I'm not looking for a server address book, but just a way to have users store their contacts on the server. I certainly don't want to rely on Outlook to keep my address book intact. Is there a way to do this? I assume that IMAP doesn't support this feature...

well that's not somethign i've had any experience, but if you want a generic address book across your site, then i'd think OpenLDAP would be the best way to head for that. Also as far as webmail goes, I really don't like squirelmail. it's simple and popular, but doesn't have that professional edge. I used to use the Horde/IMP framework which looks an awful lot more professional, and is widely used by universities and similar organisations